


I Don't Want to Have Never Known You

by The_Mouse_of_Anon



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Other, massive soul-crush ahoy, pre-Scarab Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 16:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11317134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Mouse_of_Anon/pseuds/The_Mouse_of_Anon
Summary: The mission had been a nightmare. Though it hadn’t been for long, Jaime and the scarab had been temporarily rendered unconscious by a magic-user and then immediately had been under psychic attack by a telepath. And from what little Jaime admitted about it afterward, it had felt likemonthshad gone by.What Dinah was about to find out was that it had been much worse than she'd thought.





	I Don't Want to Have Never Known You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Weirdowhotalkstoofast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weirdowhotalkstoofast/gifts).



> This bit of a cathartic soul-crush was my (late) x-mas present to Weirdowhotalkstoofast. (Sorry for taking so long to get this posted on Ao3, but she at least got to read it before the end of December.) It was completely sparked from a conversation we had that involved the concept of how much it would suck for Jaime if he was made to forget Khaji Da (thank you Rebirth for all of our concerns and doubts on that point). For the sake of making it easier to write this fic the way I wanted to, I put it in the animated YJ-verse.
> 
> I hope you enjoy. n.n

“So Jaime,” Black Canary asked the teen across the desk from her, “What would you like to talk about?”

Jaime fidgeted a moment or two, not meeting her eyes before he quietly admitted, “It’s about the last mission. Just… it’s still freaking me out. You know?”

The mission had been a nightmare. Though it hadn’t been for long, Jaime and the scarab had been temporarily rendered unconscious by a magic-user and then immediately had been under psychic attack by a telepath. It hadn’t taken the others long to get him out of there or for M’gann to detangle the mental trap Jaime had been in, but from what little he had admitted after waking up, to him it had felt like _months_ had gone by. Beyond that he’d been relatively quiet, up until he’d hesitantly knocked on her door and asked if she was busy just a few minutes prior.

“You haven’t said much about what it is you saw,” Dinah gently prompted.

He hesitated, worrying his lower lip as the armor alternated between trying to creep forward up his neck and cheeks and rippling back, almost mimicking the movement of waves. When he spoke his voice was quiet, subdued, and it was as if he was trying to talk around a gaping wound of hurt that had just begun to close. “It was like… I mean, it was months of just… nothing. Like I’d never lived any of… _this_ ,” he said while motioning vaguely around them.

“Go on.”

“It was like… like I’d never met the scarab, never fused with him, never had this life. Like I’d just kept on like I had been. No fighting, no heroing, no missions, just… going on and trying to make sure things would work out so that I could go to the college I wanted.”

Dinah cocked her head to the side. His words implied something ideal, but his body language and tone said something completely different. Still, he was hesitating on getting out what he clearly needed to, so a nudge was in order. “That sounds rather peaceful.”

He finally looked up to meet her eyes with the look of someone who had likely cried all the way into an emotional exhaustion leaving a deep-seated ache behind. “It wasn’t. I couldn’t… I couldn’t remember the scarab. At all. But I felt… The entire time, even though I felt like there was no real reason for it, I felt like something was _wrong_. Like something or someone was missing who was supposed to _be there_.”

A slight frown crept onto her face. Though Jaime had slowly been opening up more about the scarab after the Reach had been chased off-planet, there was a lot that he’d held back on. Dinah didn’t know a lot of the specifics of the relationship between Jaime and the scarab, or even if the scarab was an entity unto itself really, but she had known that the relationship was necessarily close. “It can be unsettling when something’s missing,” she agreed, trying to coax more out of him.

“It wasn’t just that!” he said vehemently, the first crack showing in his carefully held-together wall of numbness. “I was there, going through my life, nothing had changed, but _he_ wasn’t there. And I knew he was supposed to be! It was like I was constantly turning to try to talk to someone close who was supposed to be there, like I always saw someone out of the corner of my eye who I instantly recognized and was ready to carry on a conversation with, but every time I turned to look or tried to remember who it was… nothing. Like- like trying to grab smoke, o- or seeing a picture of someone you care about the _moment_ before it goes up in flames. I just… he wasn’t there and I didn’t even know who he _was_.” Jaime dropped his face into his hands as he trembled. Apparently the armor had extended under his clothes rather than just absorbing them like usual; Dinah could see the armor fluttering at his wrists and occasionally creeping up the backs of his hands before receding again. An expression of his stress? Perhaps.

“It’s clear the scarab is important to you…” Dinah started to say. If she could just encourage him to explain a little more in-depth, she had a feeling that she might help him start to get past the trauma that had been inflicted on him.

“I don’t… I _can’t_ …” Jaime forced himself to breathe slowly for a moment or two before reluctantly pulling his hands away from his face. “Before that mission I never… I never thought about not having him _there_. Not after that whole thing with the Reach, before we were on mode. I was… After we sorted some things out I was _happy_ to have him with me. I’m okay with the idea of having him with me for the rest of my life. He’s…” For a moment he choked up, his throat closing around his words.

Dinah patiently waited for him to start talking again, but based off of what he’d said thus far things were starting to fall into place.

Jaime swallowed to try to clear his throat, and the armor rippled around his neck for a moment. He muttered something under his breath, possibly ‘thanks,’ before he said more audibly, “I lost him. I lost him and no one knew about him, _and I couldn’t even remember him_. It would have been bad enough just _losing_ Khaji Da, but… not remembering him…” Jaime fell silent again and he swiped at his eyes. A low thrumming chirp emanated from Jaime’s spine and he gave a weak laugh. “ _Yo sé_. It just hurts.”

“Jaime?” Dinah said curiously. It had been entirely too obvious he hadn’t been addressing her, and the last piece was falling into place. “Who is Khaji Da?”

“It’s… he’s…” Jaime gave a ragged sigh before trying again. “Khaji Da is the scarab. That’s his name. He only told me recently. Because of… this.” He waved vaguely, implying either the mission they’d been on or his emotional state. What Dinah could see of the armor fluttered again.

_‘Is the scarab… trying to comfort Jaime?’_ That was an interesting thought and it certainly explained some things. She wasn’t dealing with one person in her office, she was dealing with two; two people who were so intertwined and emotionally close that at least one of them had never even imagined the possibility of losing the other. Small wonder then why Jaime was close to a breakdown.

“In the illusion…,” she hesitated. On one hand she didn’t want to make Jaime talk about what happened out of concern that she might risk re-traumatizing him, but on the other hand she also knew that working through it might help. “…When did you notice something was wrong?”

Jaime swiped at his eyes again before he quietly said, “Three days. Something just didn’t feel right and I couldn’t figure out what it was, so I tried to put it out of mind. You know? And again, and again, and again… And sometimes I thought I’d feel him or see him out of the corner of my eye, but I just… didn’t know who he was. I just knew he was supposed to be _there_. And no one else realized… They just noticed that I was distracted, that I couldn’t focus, that I kept looking for someone who wasn’t there…” He breathed for a moment or two. Watching him try to steady himself was like watching him trying to walk barefoot through a field of broken glass. “That telepath made me think that everyone thought that I was slowly losing my mind. I _knew_ I was sane, but with everybody around me doubting me and asking if I was getting enough sleep, if I was doing okay, and suggesting that I should get some help… I started doubting everything. And then there were the dreams.”

“Dreams?”

Jaime shrugged. He didn’t seem to notice the fact that his eyes were starting to spill over, or he no longer cared. “I think… I think Khaji Da was trying to get through to me. He was kind of out of it with the whole thing too, but… In those dreams I’d remember him, completely. Everything just _made sense_. But when I’d wake up? Poof. Gone. And all I’d remember was that I _had_ remembered and that he was supposed to be there and having him back was like finally being _home_ after being gone too long, and I-” his voice cracked and he fell silent.

“Jaime?”

“…It was almost like I kept losing him, over and over again, but I couldn’t remember enough to even know how much I lost. And the entire time everybody was telling me that I was making a big deal out of nothing.” His voice hitched again; the armor was still fluttering and a quiet chirring sound began emanating from the scarab. “I mean… I know I _haven’t_ lost him— he’s here obviously, trying to help me calm down by telling me that he isn’t going anywhere and all that— but I just… I can’t just _forget_ that. I can’t forget not having him there and everything just being _wrong_.”

Dinah pushed back from her desk to step around it, park herself in the chair next to Jaime, and pull him into a hug without any hesitation. The way he broke and just sagged against her, it was all too obvious that it was what he needed. “Shh, Jaime, you’re okay. You’re both okay. You’re both safe, and no one is going to let anything happen to _either_ of you.” One thing was for damned certain, she was going to make sure Jaime and Khaji Da were given the break they needed, and if anyone tried to argue there would be hell to pay. As she gently petted his hair, Dinah murmured, “Jaime, I’m going to recommend that the two of you go on leave for a while, though you’re welcome to be here as much as you like until the two of you are ready to come back. Okay?”

Jaime nodded, but made no move to pull away from her.

“Also, I have one request for Khaji Da.”

Jaime pulled away from her a little to meet her eyes with a questioning look. He didn’t exactly feel up to speaking though.

“Khaji Da, would you keep an eye on him?”

A distinct chirp emanated from the scarab and startled a ragged laugh from Jaime. “You _would_ say that.”

Dinah didn’t bother repressing the smile tugging at her lips, and as she smoothed back some of Jaime’s hair she asked, “What did he say?”

Though his voice was thick with tears, Jaime was almost laughing as he said, “He said he’ll never leave me alone, and that if anyone tries to take him away from me like that again, then he’ll just send you after them.”

“I like the way he thinks,” she said with an amused tone. True, Jaime having an over-powered sentient weapon of mass destruction fused to his spine wasn’t ideal, but the two of them were managing surprisingly well; and if said alien AI cared as much for Jaime’s well-being as she thought, she wasn’t about to argue with that.


End file.
